Help, tank yucked up.... urgh!

Hello everyone!

I have an 11-month old tank that was doing very well up through early
August when I had to go off on a 90-day trip to the middle east. Well,
I'm back now and my oldest son, who was feeding and cleaning the tank,
"forgot" to empty the skimmer the whole time I was gone! So, this
morning I came in to find a nice nasty skimmer covered in dried green
goo that doesn't seem to be doing anything and a tank that's covered in
1/2" of solid growth on the walls and rock.

Best I can tell I've lost all my corals, shrimp, most of my snails (I
have three very large conch now), and have maybe 3-4 crabs left out of
an original 20. I've lost both yellow tangs and my pseudochromis. The
two clown fish seem to be doing well, although the anemonie is missing.
There are also two crocea clams in the tank which (strangely) seem to be
doing well as they're both large, open and reactive to light.

I've cleaned the skimmer completely and it has produced two full cups of
skimmate (very wet tea - I'll dial down the air supply later) so far
today. I also scrapped the walls of the tank and then used a net to pull
the floating debris out of the tank. I've cleaned the filters for the
wave maker as well as the prefilter for the sump and swapped out the old
chemi-pure bags in the sump for 2 new ones (after rinsing).

Anything else I can do? Much of the growth on my 150# of live rock seems
to be some kind of slime mold - maybe red slime algea? It's already
everywhere in the tank, so is there a fast way to remove this? And the
same growth is all over the sand as well.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated...

tia,

mark h

Sounds like Cyanobacteria - Blue/Green algae ?
Are there Bubbles trapped in the goo ?
Remove with Turkey Baster...blow it off and slurp it up.
A few Major water changes.
How about dropping in some Mardel Sal****er Maracyn
Increase flow, keep the skimmer going, reduced light schedule
and Phosphate sponge.

Your son was feeding the fish...
how much food did you have left when you got back ?

What R your water parameters ????

Chris





"Mark Henry" wrote in message
.. .
Hello everyone!

I have an 11-month old tank that was doing very well up through early
August when I had to go off on a 90-day trip to the middle east. Well, I'm
back now and my oldest son, who was feeding and cleaning the tank,
"forgot" to empty the skimmer the whole time I was gone! So, this morning
I came in to find a nice nasty skimmer covered in dried green goo that
doesn't seem to be doing anything and a tank that's covered in 1/2" of
solid growth on the walls and rock.

Best I can tell I've lost all my corals, shrimp, most of my snails (I have
three very large conch now), and have maybe 3-4 crabs left out of an
original 20. I've lost both yellow tangs and my pseudochromis. The two
clown fish seem to be doing well, although the anemonie is missing. There
are also two crocea clams in the tank which (strangely) seem to be doing
well as they're both large, open and reactive to light.

I've cleaned the skimmer completely and it has produced two full cups of
skimmate (very wet tea - I'll dial down the air supply later) so far
today. I also scrapped the walls of the tank and then used a net to pull
the floating debris out of the tank. I've cleaned the filters for the wave
maker as well as the prefilter for the sump and swapped out the old
chemi-pure bags in the sump for 2 new ones (after rinsing).

Anything else I can do? Much of the growth on my 150# of live rock seems
to be some kind of slime mold - maybe red slime algea? It's already
everywhere in the tank, so is there a fast way to remove this? And the
same growth is all over the sand as well.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated...

tia,

mark h

Sounds to me that it will take time and everything that you did to recover
from that crash seems great.
I agree with The Rock, Water changes will do wonders and you have a lot of
manual extractions to make, good luck.
Last, is your oldest son still living with you? lol
iy
"Mark Henry" wrote in message
.. .
Hello everyone!

I have an 11-month old tank that was doing very well up through early
August when I had to go off on a 90-day trip to the middle east. Well, I'm
back now and my oldest son, who was feeding and cleaning the tank,
"forgot" to empty the skimmer the whole time I was gone! So, this morning
I came in to find a nice nasty skimmer covered in dried green goo that
doesn't seem to be doing anything and a tank that's covered in 1/2" of
solid growth on the walls and rock.

Best I can tell I've lost all my corals, shrimp, most of my snails (I have
three very large conch now), and have maybe 3-4 crabs left out of an
original 20. I've lost both yellow tangs and my pseudochromis. The two
clown fish seem to be doing well, although the anemonie is missing. There
are also two crocea clams in the tank which (strangely) seem to be doing
well as they're both large, open and reactive to light.

I've cleaned the skimmer completely and it has produced two full cups of
skimmate (very wet tea - I'll dial down the air supply later) so far
today. I also scrapped the walls of the tank and then used a net to pull
the floating debris out of the tank. I've cleaned the filters for the wave
maker as well as the prefilter for the sump and swapped out the old
chemi-pure bags in the sump for 2 new ones (after rinsing).

Anything else I can do? Much of the growth on my 150# of live rock seems
to be some kind of slime mold - maybe red slime algea? It's already
everywhere in the tank, so is there a fast way to remove this? And the
same growth is all over the sand as well.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated...

tia,

mark h

Yep it's cyanobacteria.

Do lots of large water changes.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Mark Henry wrote on 11/1/2006 3:39 PM:
Hello everyone!

I have an 11-month old tank that was doing very well up through early
August when I had to go off on a 90-day trip to the middle east. Well,
I'm back now and my oldest son, who was feeding and cleaning the tank,
"forgot" to empty the skimmer the whole time I was gone! So, this
morning I came in to find a nice nasty skimmer covered in dried green
goo that doesn't seem to be doing anything and a tank that's covered in
1/2" of solid growth on the walls and rock.

Best I can tell I've lost all my corals, shrimp, most of my snails (I
have three very large conch now), and have maybe 3-4 crabs left out of
an original 20. I've lost both yellow tangs and my pseudochromis. The
two clown fish seem to be doing well, although the anemonie is missing.
There are also two crocea clams in the tank which (strangely) seem to be
doing well as they're both large, open and reactive to light.

I've cleaned the skimmer completely and it has produced two full cups of
skimmate (very wet tea - I'll dial down the air supply later) so far
today. I also scrapped the walls of the tank and then used a net to pull
the floating debris out of the tank. I've cleaned the filters for the
wave maker as well as the prefilter for the sump and swapped out the old
chemi-pure bags in the sump for 2 new ones (after rinsing).

Anything else I can do? Much of the growth on my 150# of live rock seems
to be some kind of slime mold - maybe red slime algea? It's already
everywhere in the tank, so is there a fast way to remove this? And the
same growth is all over the sand as well.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated...

tia,

mark h

Thanks for all the pointers. It's slow going, but the tank is coming
clean. I've blown all the buildup off the rock and suctioned that out of
the tank, as well as scraped the sides down. I used a small fish net to
sift the cyano off the top layer of sand.

I did a 10g water change yesterday (it's a 65g tank) and will do another
10g today. Water parameters were whacked out yesterday morning, but are
more inline today with the replacement of media bags, cleaning of
detrius filters and addition of trace elements. Calcium is low, but I've
added some kalkwasser and will test again tomorrow.

All of the coral colonies are dead or nearly so. There's a couple button
polyps still left and one lonely mushroom, but that's it - a loss of
about $500. I hesitate to add any cleaup crew (shrimp or crabs) until
the tank settles bak in.

Thanks again for your help.

mark h

"Mark Henry" wrote in message
...
Thanks for all the pointers. It's slow going, but the tank is coming
clean. I've blown all the buildup off the rock and suctioned that out of
the tank, as well as scraped the sides down. I used a small fish net to
sift the cyano off the top layer of sand.

I did a 10g water change yesterday (it's a 65g tank) and will do another
10g today. Water parameters were whacked out yesterday morning, but are
more inline today with the replacement of media bags, cleaning of detrius
filters and addition of trace elements. Calcium is low, but I've added
some kalkwasser and will test again tomorrow.

All of the coral colonies are dead or nearly so. There's a couple button
polyps still left and one lonely mushroom, but that's it - a loss of about
$500. I hesitate to add any cleaup crew (shrimp or crabs) until the tank
settles bak in.

Thanks again for your help.

mark h

Myself I would try for at least one pretty large change
50% or so
It's not my clam
But you really want to dilute this water pretty seriously
It is going to be loaded with organics
and depleted of traces